Read Online Sullivan's Law by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg - Free Book Online Page A

following in her footsteps.
    â€œI’ll finish cleaning up,” his mother told him. “You need to get to bed. I’ve told you a dozen times not to bother with the dishes. You do enough as it is.”
    â€œBed?” John said, an anxious look on his face. “I have hours of homework left to do.” He wiped his hands on a dish towel. “Paul Leighton bought a house down the street. I saw him outside today. I was going to walk over and introduce myself. I decided it wouldn’t be polite to bother him until he gets all his furniture and stuff moved in.”
    Carolyn opened the refrigerator and removed a pitcher of lemonade, pouring herself a glass and taking a seat in a wooden chair at the round oak table. “Am I supposed to know this person? The name doesn’t sound familiar.”
    â€œHe’s a physics professor at Caltech,” John told her. “Mr. Chang showed me all of the books he’s written. He thinks Leighton is going to be another Richard Feynman, the guy I’ve been studying.”
    â€œImpressive,” Carolyn said, bracing her head with one hand, then kicking her shoes off. “So he’s both a writer and a physicist?”
    The boy shook his head in frustration. His mother was an enigma. In the past, she could solve a math problem he’d worked on for days in less than an hour. Since she’d been attending law school, though, she’d turned into a space cadet. He knew she was tired. He could see it on her face. “Leighton doesn’t write novels, Mom, like Dad tried to do. He writes textbooks. Not only that,” her son continued, “he graduated from MIT.”
    â€œNow I’m really impressed,” Carolyn said, smiling. “There are other schools besides MIT, you know. What’s wrong with Caltech? Even Long Beach State is a good school. A California university wouldn’t be as costly.”
    â€œYou don’t understand,” John argued. “MIT is the best. Maybe Professor Leighton could write a letter for me. Since I went to summer school last year, I’ll be able to graduate when I’m seventeen. That’s only two years away. All I need to do is ace my SATs.”
    â€œSounds great,” his mother said. “When I can free up a night, we’ll invite the professor and his wife over for dinner.”
    Her son had a sheepish look on his face. “He doesn’t have a wife. He’s divorced. His daughter is the same age as Becky. That means she’ll go to the same school. I’ve already talked to Becky and she promised to introduce Leighton’s daughter to some of her friends.”
    â€œYour sister doesn’t like to be called Becky,” Carolyn reminded him. “She says it sounds too babyish now that she’s in junior high.”
    â€œWhat do I care?” John tossed out. “I do all the work around here. I can call her anything I want.”
    â€œI had a similar conversation with Brad today,” Carolyn told him, finishing her lemonade and carrying the glass to the sink. “Call her Rebecca, okay? I’ve got enough problems without listening to you two squabbling over a name.”
    â€œWhat did Brad do to make you mad?”
    â€œHe called me sweetheart.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with that?”
    â€œIt’s not appropriate for a supervisor to use terms of endearment at the office. He also called me baby.”
    â€œI’m glad you stopped seeing him,” the boy said. “He’s a prick, if you ask me. The thought of him shacking up with my mother made me want to puke.”
    Carolyn slapped him on the shoulder. “Talking about your mother shacking up is unacceptable, got it? I was lonely. Brad and I’ve been friends for years. We went out to dinner and took in an occasional movie.”
    â€œRight,” John said, smirking. “You can’t feed me that bullshit. I saw you sneaking in at two in the